


Navigating Deep Waters

by helens78



Category: due South
Genre: 5 Things, Angst, M/M, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension, childhood crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-07
Updated: 2010-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-13 17:10:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helens78/pseuds/helens78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five people Fraser has been attracted to over the years, none of whom have ever been given a chance to know it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Navigating Deep Waters

**Author's Note:**

> This is another story where "Chose Not To Warn" was checked because the warnings aren't exactly accurate. There is minimal, unrequited, unacted-on attraction from one 12-year-old boy to another in part 1, along the lines of a childhood crush at the cusp of puberty. Nothing explicit.

1\. Mark wraps an arm around Fraser's shoulders, and his hip tucks into Fraser's as they skate across the pond. Fraser has been getting unwanted erections for months, of course, but this--it's different. It isn't random, it isn't a simple body function, it... it isn't even _unwanted_ , really, at least not by Fraser.

He doesn't mention it, of course--his own awkward experimentations leave him no desire to try it with another _person_ \--but from then on, when he looks at Mark, his gaze lingers.

* * *

2\. Barry is one of the cadets at Depot who's been there for the first training period, which means he's one of the members of the "big brother" troop, part of the troop that's there in case Fraser's troop has questions or needs guidance.

He listens to Barry talk and watches Barry move and, somewhere around a week, two weeks into training, he realizes how very, very much he likes Barry's hands. He sits bolt upright when the pieces click together for him, mouth gone dry.

It's impossible not to touch himself that night, alone in his bunk; he's heard others doing it, of course, because they're all of them only human. But this is the first time it's _him_ , and his face heats and then burns with shame as he imagines Barry's hands where his are, swift and quiet in the darkness.

* * *

3\. At first the clothing and the accent and the brash, louder-than-life attitude make Fraser recoil, but then one day he's sitting across from Ray at Ray's desk, and Ray stretches his neck, and Fraser has a vivid, full-color fantasy spring into his mind almost unbidden: Fraser rubbing his face against the side of Vecchio's neck.

Fraser thinks there's going to be a good time to mention this to Ray, that perhaps Ray would understand, perhaps he wouldn't take it badly, but one thing leads to another and it simply doesn't come up. Up a telephone pole, Ray's voice tinny on the other end of the line, Fraser feels his stomach lurch: for the first time, he counted on someone being there forever, and he missed his chance accordingly.

* * *

4\. Fraser is overwhelmed with it, blanketed by it--new face, new body, wrapped around him, _arms_ around him, _scent_ surrounding him, and he's in too much shock (and still too bitter about his missing Ray) to do much more than fume.

But a few days later, when the ersatz Ray Vecchio asks Fraser point-blank, Fraser says what his body's been wanting him to say to _someone_ all these years: "Yes, Ray, very much so."

Not that it changes anything, but it's further than he's ever gotten before.

* * *

5\. When Fraser and Ray step into the hotel room, Ray Vecchio has a terrible case of false mustache, and it's been more than a year since Fraser's seen him, and all Fraser can really think is _Oh, one can be attracted to more than one person at a time. I didn't think about that._

Because there's still Ray, Ray Kowalski, that is, and Fraser's attraction to him has by no means diminished, but now there's Ray again, Ray Vecchio, and Fraser has a few seconds' worth of complete lunacy, imagining that the two of them might actually learn to get along.

He thinks about one or the other of them or _both_ of them sometimes, times when he's tired and arousal is a low buzz at the base of his spine, a need that has to be met lest things get worse. But juggling attraction to one man is difficult enough, let alone two. And what if, someday, there's a number three? It's too complicated to bear thinking on.

 _-end-_


End file.
